Polygamist feared arrest if girl fled, witness says

Tuesday September 18, 2007

ST. GEORGE, UTAH — — The leader of a polygamous sect being tried on charges that he coerced a 14-year-old girl to marry her cousin feared prosecution for presiding over underage unions if the girl fled her marriage, her sister testified Monday.

Musser said Jeffs told her that “if this marriage fell apart or didn’t stay together, it could cause some problems.”

Jeffs is charged with two counts of coercing the rape of the bride by ordering her to marry her 19-year-old cousin and rejecting her pleas to dissolve the union after the marriage was consummated against her will. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison.

It was the testimony of Musser — one of the alleged victim’s 24 siblings — that dominated courtroom proceedings Monday.

Rebecca Musser occupied a privileged place in FLDS society: At 19, she married the church’s then-prophet, 86-year-old Rulon Jeffs — Warren Jeffs’ father.

Rulon Jeffs soon suffered a stroke and began to decline, and Warren Jeffs was regarded by church members as the chief envoy to his father. In 2002, after Rulon’s death, Warren Jeffs rose to the position of prophet.

Musser said that FLDS teachings forbid a wife to question her husband.

Defense attorneys pointed to Warren Jeffs’ teachings urging wives to say “No, no, no” if their husbands tried to lead them into wickedness.

But Musser said that that mainly referred to a woman’s ability to refuse to leave the church.

Musser testified that she had firsthand knowledge of Warren Jeffs’ views on a wife’s ability to deny her husband sex. She said Warren Jeffs chastised her for turning down her own husband’s advances.